Posts categorized "New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF)"

July 29, 2014

Here's my final roundup of reviews from the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). I saw 19 shows over the course of three weekends. It was a bit grueling at times, but overall I found it exhilarating. There's so much passion out there for musicals, both in writing them and in attending them. Even if most of these shows never make to Broadway, or even Off-Broadway, the sheer number of shows in development is an encouraging sign.

Watch for future posts from me on the winners of the NYMF Awards for Excellence (for which I served as a juror), as well as for my take on lessons learned. Essentially, I'll be compiling a list of questions that would-be writers and composers for musical theater can ask themselves as they work on their shows, questions that, I hope, will help them avoid some of the pitfalls that I've seen over and over in developing musicals. (Just call me a dramaturg in absentia.)

Mr. Confidential - Anyone looking for an object lesson in the term "dramaturgy problems" need look no further than Mr. Confidential. I can't recall another show during which I had to continually ask "Um...what?" as frequently. It's not the plot that's befuddling: it's basically about a guy and his family starting a gossip magazine and pissing the wrong people off. What's confusing is understanding what people are singing about, why this particular person needs to be singing, and why the events are unfolding the way they are. Mr. Confidential has book and lyrics by Samuel Bernstein, music by David Snyder, and while Snyder's music is often quite good, often exciting, Bernstein's book and lyrics are a mess. I continually found myself asking: What's this song about? Why is this person making this choice? What the hell is going on? And so on. Bernstein needs to decide what he really wants each song to be about and then craft lyrics that more explicitly meet those intentions. Bernstein's book raises even more questions than the lyrics. For example, the magazine publisher, Bob Harrison, attempts to hire a recently unseated anti-communist politician to help find stories for the magazine, and because for some reason this guy would give Harrison access to famed columnist Walter Winchell. But why would Winchell help a rival publication with story ideas? He's got his own media empire to feed. The biggest WTF moment comes at the end. Apparently there's a car crash, which takes the lives of two of the characters, but the headline accompanying the scene says it was the publisher who killed himself and his wife. But Harrison is shown announcing the accident to the press, despite the fact that he's the publisher. It was a fittingly opaque end to a bewildering show.

The Travels - The Travels was perhaps the most thematically ambitious show I saw at NYMF this year. The book and lyrics are by Aaron Ricciardi, the music by Kelly Hoppenjans. The story involves a comic dystopian tale of a future America, including a daily TV show to encourage conformity, discourage travel, and foster devotion to a Big-Brother-like authority figure. Not so much a musical as a play with music, The Travels features diegetic, commentative numbers, not unlike half of the score to Cabaret, or most of the score to Chicago. For the most part, this approach works: the song interludes take us out of the story and remind us of the show's Brechtian ambitions. Ricciardi also makes the interesting choice to start each scene with a show card announcing the impending fate of the characters, a clear nod to Brecht's alienation techniques. Ricciardi displays a keen intelligence and sharp comic instincts with his imaginative language and precepts for his fictional world, even if the whole affair seems just a tad too dependent on 1984 and Brave New World in its fundaments. There are some clear flaws in the show's logic: when two foreigners enter the country and are forced to become "domestic domicile disinfectors," they seem to have no prior knowledge of the country's shift toward totalitarianism. But the show tells us that the current regime has been in place for 25 years. It's hard to imagine that word wouldn't have somehow gotten out over a quarter of a century. Still, The Travels works rather well, at least until it starts taking itself too seriously. If Ricciardi could find ways to sustain the satire and edge throughout the show, he and Hoppenjans might have a winner on their hands. (A final note: As I said last year, apropos of her star turn in Julian Po, the fabulous Luba Mason, featured prominently in The Travels, should always be in a Broadway show. Will someone please rectify this, stat?)

Madame Infamy - As I've mentioned, I hadn't been all that impressed by the quality of the music is this year's NYMF shows. That is, until my final NYMF weekend, when I started to hear some really strong music. Madame Infamy has a book by JP Vigliotti, and music and lyrics by Cardozie Jones and Sean Willis. The book and lyrics need quite a bit of work, but Jones' and Willis' score is pretty darned fabulous, despite a preponderance of what I call "beltando" and "riffando" on the part of some of the singers. Jones and Willis have quite a touch with memorable and stirring music, including some ambitious contrapuntal pieces. Madame Infamy tells the parallel stories of Marie Antoinette and Sally Hemmings, the latter a slave owned by Thomas Jefferson who also allegedly became the mother of a number of children by Jefferson. I kept expecting the two stories to come together, but they never really did. Apart from seeing each other from afar at a ball at Versailles (Jefferson is in France to garner support for the American Revolution), the women never come in direct contact. The authors would be wise to create more of a link between the two characters, historically justified or no. As a whole, the show feels like a combination of Les Miserables, Wicked, and The Princess Diaries, as produced by The Disney Channel -- sort of a schoolgirl's take on history. The lyrics need quite a bit of work: I frequently had no idea what characters were singing about, and somtimes didn't even know who the characters were. Much of the dialogue feels artificial, even creaky. Plot turns and character motivations are frequently difficult to discern. People in support positions act in ways inconsistent with their station. Members of court act condescendingly and imperiously toward Louis XVI and Marie. One of Jefferson's slaves tracks him down to punch him in the face. Um, who's in charge here? This isn't a high school dance in 2014. It's the court at frickin' Versailles. (Final note: the authors should re-familiarize themselves with the rules of pronoun-case usage. The show is littered with such erroneous phrases as "...between you and I...," "It's rare for we women to be taken seriously," and "You shall accompany Martha and I..." I'm sorry, but we're talking Thomas Jefferson here, one of the greatest writers this country has ever seen. This is one guy who would know the difference between the nominative and the objective case.)

Propaganda! - Here's another trend I noticed at NYMF this year: opening numbers that don't fully set the scene. I'm sure it's easy, when you're writing a show, to lose track of what the audience knows and when, and what they need to know from the beginning so that the rest of the show makes sense. All the more reason to make the Who, What, Where, and When as clear as possible, and as soon as possible. Propaganda! - The Musical is a case in point. The opening lyric keeps repeating "This just in, on the radio," as if that's supposed to be enough to tell us where we are and what's going on. But it isn't. I kept trying to guess: Is this a TV station? A newspaper? A PR firm? The republican national headquarters? In turns out that we're witnessing the goings-on at a secret government agency that specializes in covering up scandals. Three numbers into the show, this still wasn't clear. Once clarity sets in, Propaganda! is actually quite enjoyable, often hilarious. The book, music, and lyrics are by Taylor Ferrera and Matt Webster, and the pair show great promise as comedy writers. Propaganda! gets a bit messy at times, but overall it's a hoot. There's a tongue-in-cheek meta quality to much of the dialogue, which works in fits and starts. There's some inconsistent logic regarding character traits and plot ramifications. But there are also some terrific insider musical-theater jokes that had me roaring. The songs are hit or miss, but there are some really strong showstopper-type numbers, particularly the show's chief evildoer, Agent X, played with great relish here by the wondrous Kenita Miller. Conversely, there's an 11 o'clock number that stops the show in a bad way, called "Sing Me to Sleep," which unfortunately lives up to its name. Much of the fun in the show comes from the shameless showboating from the ensemble, which was jarring at first, but eventually built to a comic crescendo that contributed greatly to the show's overall fun index. Also notable was the outstanding choreography from Jason Sparks, which gave the mincing queens (and I mean that with love) in the ensemble a chance to shine. (Also, I would strongly suggest a change of the show's title. Propaganda! doesn't really capture the spirit of the show. Might I suggest changing it to Cover Up!, while retaining the classic musical-theater exclamation point.)

Fable - My final NYMF musical of the year was Fable, a show with a bit of an identity crises. The book is by Harrison Kaufman, the music and lyrics by Christopher Anselmo. I feel I must preface my remarks by pointing out that both Anselmo and Kaufman are still in college: Anselmo at Northwestern, Kaufman at NYU. Judged from that vantage point, the work here is outstanding, if uneven. But from an audience perspective, it doesn't really matter how old the creators are. What matters is what's on stage. Well, Anselmo shows tremendous promise as a composer and lyricist. Anselmo's music is by turns soaring, jaunty, and hard-rocking, even if it does reflect just a touch too much RLNS (Really-Long-Note Syndrome). His lyrics are among the cleanest I've ever heard at NYMF: I don't recall hearing any significant slant rhyme, faulty scansion, or reversed syntax. The main liability of the show in its current form is that the high stakes evident in the score don't match the rather mundane events depicted in the book. We're basically at a graduation party in which six high-school friends reveal -- and wring their hands over -- a series of rather quotidian revelations: someone's parents are getting divorced, someone makes out with another girl's boyfriend, some says "I Love You" too soon, someone reveals that she lied about getting into Princeton, and a brother tells his sister that he didn't go to college so the family could afford to send her. Which is all fine and good, except the momentous, weighty ballads that emerge toward the end of the show don't feel justified based on such prosaic concerns. For instance, one character sings a "Get Out, and Stay Out" type number to his friends. but it's not entirely clear why he's so upset. The cast features a decidedly strong sextet of young performers, including star-to-be Dan Rosales, making his NYMF debut. (Full disclosure: Dan is one of my recent BoCo students. But trust me, you're going to hear from this amazingly talented young man very soon, of this I have no doubt.)

July 27, 2014

Here's my third round of reviews, out of four, of shows from the 2014 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Seeing so many shows in such a short time has been a really rewarding process, one that I recommend to anyone who aspires to write for or about musical theater. Nothing puts the finished product into perspective like a glimpse at the development process. It's also very heartening to see so many people who are passionate about musical theater, on both sides of the footlights.

One somewhat disheartening trend this year has been the rather colorless music evident in many NYMF shows. It's not always clear whether this is a product of the actual composition, the sound design, the orchestrations, or some combination thereof, but I haven't heard much music that I found interesting, intriguing, or pleasant. In fact, on my NYMF juror ballot, I only cited two shows for Best Music, although the ballot allows jurors to list as many as three shows. Otherwise, the music at NYMF this year has lacked flare, tonality, a predictable downbeat, consonant intervals, plus whatever indefinable something goes into making a score memorable and effective.

No, not every score needs to sound like Richard Rodgers composed it, and there is certainly plenty of room for growth in the type of music that musical theater has historically embraced. But style and quality are not synonymous: scores that reflect rock, rap, R&B, emo, country, afro-beat, or any other style of music don't get a pass because they're atypical Broadway. They also need to be good. (Whatever that means, right?)

Mother Jones and the Children's Crusade - As I mentioned in my most recent round of reviews, I had been noticing fewer NYMF shows with significant dramaturgical issues than in previous years. Then, for some reason, I suddenly started seeing a spate of shows that were raising who, what, where, when and why questions. One show that could benefit from more dramaturgical effort is Mother Jones and the Children's Crusade. (Full disclosure: Mother Jones is being produced by one of my recent students, but my students know that, once they graduate, I will approach their efforts with the same tough-but-fair approach I would apply to any other show.) The book, music, and lyrics for Mother Jones are by Cheryl E. Kemeny, and Kemeny might be wise to bring on a collaborator or two: while her music is strong, tuneful, and often rousing, the lyrics here are uninspired and peppered with cliché. The main area needing attention is the book, which is full of holes. The story concerns Mary Harris Jones, known as "Mother Jones," a firebrand labor activist and community organizer, and her efforts to call attention to the horrors of child labor in the very early 1900s. The show isn't always clear about where a scene or song is taking place. Are we in a West Virginia coal mine? Or a Pennsylvania textile mill? Or a convent? I was, at various times, confused. This is indicative of a larger problem with Mother Jones: the rationale behind the scenes and songs isn't always clear. Characters make choices that aren't fully justified in the narrative. One character spends most of act one as a cartoonish musical-comedy stereotype, only to undergo an abrupt change of heart in act two. Mother Jones sings a song that's meant to explain her involvement in the Children's Crusade, but the song is about losing her husband and children to yellow fever. It's a powerful song, rendered triumphantly here by the always marvelous Lynne Wintersteller, but it's not really clear what this admittedly horrific experience has to do with organizing unions and abolishing child labor. Mother Jones itself is going to need a bit more organizing if it's going to have any chance of bringing its message to the masses.

Clinton - the Musical - You might think a musical about Bill Clinton would be one long dick joke. And you'd be right. (Get it? Long? Dick? Tee-hee...) That's pretty much what Clinton - the Musical amounts to right now: a two-hour parade of sniggering schoolboy innuendo and vulgarity. There's even a song called "I'm Fucking the Fucking President." And it gets a reprise. The show has a book by Paul Hodge and Michael Hodge, with music and lyrics by Paul Hodge, and just about the only inspired choice the Hodges make is to have Clinton played by two different actors, one representing his presidential side, and the other his horn-dog side, although this isn't fully exploited at this point in the show's development. The rest of the show pretty much amounts to a rather flabby attempt at topical humor. The well-known cast of characters here become broad characterizations of the most obvious sort. Al Gore is played by a cardboard cutout. Monica Lewinsky becomes a shallow ditz who sports a stylized cum stain on her dress for more than half the show. Newt Gingrich is a cackling demon: the fight over the big government shutdown of 1995 is represented by a boxing match. Special prosecutor Kenneth Starr is introduced with a number called - I kid you not - "A Starr Is Born." When the show isn't trafficking in the obvious, it utlizes such past-its-sell-date humor as having the cast sing and dance about the legal definition of "sexual relations" to the tune of the "Macarena." Toward the end of the show, there were a few effective sequences, including one in which the two Bills and Hillary practice together for the State of the Union address in order to remove any possible double entendres. Yeah, we're still talking dick jokes, but there was at least some craft behind it. The Hillary character also gets a fairly effective, even moving, 11 o'clock number in which she finally confronts Bill about all the lying and infidelity. But, on the whole, Clinton is rather flaccid. (Which, BTW Messrs. Hodge, is traditionally pronounced "flack-sid," not "flassid.")

The Snow Queen - Most of the shows at NYMF are on a pretty tight budget, so the physical production values tend to be modest. The show with the best design this year was The Snow Queen, which is based on the tale by Hans Christian Anderson. The costumes, projections, even the show's logo represent a top-notch sense of overall design. Now, all that sharp stagecraft needs is a better show to support. The book here is by Kirsten Brandt and Rick Lombardo, the music by Haddon Kime and Rick Lombardo, the lyrics by Brandt, Kime, and Lombardo. The show seems to have Peter and the Starcatcher ambitions, with a sort of objet trouvé feel, a stage full of actor/musicians, and various attempts at suggested versus literal stagecraft. Right now, though, The Snow Queen lacks the spark and sense of riotous fun that Peter and the Starcatcher so vividly reflected. The story concerns two chIldhood friends, Kai and Gerde. Kai falls under the spell of the Snow Queen and follows her to her icy lair, and Gerde sets off the find him. Along the way, she meets a succession of would-be vivid comic characters, but only a few of these characterizations were fully successful. The ensemble cast is mostly quite strong, although there was some scenery chewing going on. The show has significant dramaturgy problems at present: when the show starts, it's unclear whether the Snow Queen or another character, the Troll, would eventually become the antagonist. Are these two characters in cahoots, or are they separate malevolent forces? Later, when Kai first encounters the Snow Queen, he suddenly becomes obsessed with counting. Eventually we learn that this has a purpose, but it was quizzical at the time. But the main liability here is the score, which is thoroughly unappealing, a wall of undifferentiated sound that makes it difficult to understand most of the lyrics. This may be partly due to poor sound design and muddy orchestrations, but whatever the cause, the music comes off as an amorphous emo drone. I'm sure the composer is going for something modern and outré, but this is a kids show, and children haven't yet developed the parts of their brains that can appreciate dissonance. That's why most children's music features perfect intervals. I think there's a solid show in the making here, but the music is going to need a significant overhaul.

Zombie Strippers - With a show named Zombie Strippers, it can go one of two ways: brilliant camp or forced, self-conscious muddle. Zombie Strippers is much closer to the latter, and even at only 65 minutes, significantly overstays its welcome. As the title implies, Zombie Strippers is about a trio of strippers who...well...become zombies. A mourning coworker visits the graveyard with her douchebag boyfriend, which sets the plot in motion. The book, music, and lyrics by Mark LaPierre, and really the only thing here that's promising are LaPierre's lyrics, which show some talent for word play and occasional flashes of genuine wit. But there are some lyrics that just don't make any sense, for instance, "Life is like a play. It's depressing and unfair." Um, is that really what plays are? More likely this is simply due to faulty modification, but clarity is part of the craft, folks. At times, it's not entirely clear that the characters are aware of what they're saying. In one song, the two key females are supposed to be revealing something significant about themselves, but one character actually says nothing new, meanwhile seemingly ignoring a major reveal on the part of the other character. The music here, canned and live electronic synth, is far too languid for a purportedly comic show. LaPierre frequently undercuts the comedy of his lyrics by crafting extended vocal lines that kill that joke. Like many of this year's NYMF composers, La Pierre seems to be deliberately avoiding tonality, which makes for an unpleasant aural experience. Just because the show is about zombies doesn't mean the audience should be in pain. As for the book, it's not clear that the show even understands, let alone reflects, its internal rules about what creates these zombies or how to kill them. Even a show with a ridiculous premise needs to have an internal logic; any sci-fi fan will tell you that. I get the feeling that ZombieStrippers, unlike its titillating titular characters, isn't looking at much of an afterlife.

July 22, 2014

Here's my second installment of reviews from this year's New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF). I continue to be impressed at the overall higher caliber of shows at this year's festival. In particular, there seem to be far fewer shows with major dramaturgical problems.

"Turgid-drama-whah?"

Yeah, I know. Let's break it down. Dramaturgy basically refers to act of shaping a show into a performable piece, as distinct from actually writing the play. A dramaturg is sort of like an editor for playwrights. Examples of dramaturgical problems would include songs that don't have sufficient justification in the story, characters who make choices that we don't fully understand, events that occur without clear causes or antecedents, etc. If a show has you asking, "Wait, what? Who? Where? Why?," then that show has problems with its dramaturgy.

As we'll see in my next installment of reviews, there have been a few NYMF musicals that had me scratching my head at various times throughout the show, but again that number is significantly smaller than in previous years.

Coming of Age - Songs cycles are tricky to pull off. There needs to be a certain cohesion to the material, a clear sensibility to the writing. Oh, and they need to be short. At two and a half hours with a 15-minute intermission, Coming of Age is anything but short. Not only does the entire show go on too long -- about an hour too long -- but each of the numbers tends to overstay its welcome as well. The music and lyrics for Coming of Age are by Jon Provan, and his music is not without merit; some of it is quite pleasant, actually. Provan's lyrics are passable when the tone of the song is upbeat, as is the case with a charming song early in the show in which a Jewish girl complains that "nobody gives a shit about a bat mitzvah." However, the lyrics here are replete with enough slant rhyme, faulty scansion, and forced extra syllables to outfit a season of developing shows. When the songs get serious, out come the New Age platitudes and ponderously anthemic vocal lines. The entire show gives off an air of self-consciousness, a security in its own importance. As the title implies, Coming of Age is about rights of passage. However, Provan seems to have mistaken breadth for depth, and includes numbers from a risibly broad range of epochs, including numbers about Norse warriors heading out to sea, a child king about to be crowned, a young Spartan who's reluctant to be trained, and an adolescent Cro-Magnon hunting the wooly mammoth. I kid you not.

Bayonets of Angst - I almost wasn't going to see this one, but I'm so glad I did. Bayonets of Angst, despite the awkward title,is a hoot and a holler. The hilarious book is by Rick Kunzi and Justin Zeppa, and basically amounts to Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson without all that annoying emo music. The story is essentially The Civil War filtered through the authors' wonderfully twisted sensibility. If only the rest of American history had been this howlingly funny, I might have paid closer attention in high school. The show begins with the last surviving veterans of the War Between the States, who have gathered for their 149th reunion -- although, clearly, none of them are moving very fast -- and they resolve to tell the "truth" about the war while they still have time. We then flash back to the time of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and William Tecumseh Sherman, but these are very likely not to be the people you're familiar with from history books. Much of the fun here comes from the sure-handed comic direction of Michael Lluberes, who keeps the proceedings going at a fevered pitch for most of the show's 90 minutes. The score is slightly less effective than the book and direction, but that was pretty much the case with Bloody Bloody as well. Another major source of joy here is the supremely gifted cast, flawless to a man (which might seem like a sexist phrase, except that the entire cast is male). The protean ensemble includes J. Robert Spencer (Lincoln), Paul Whitty (Grant), Michael Abbot Jr. (Sherman), Ryan Andes (Robert E. Lee), and Brian Charles Rooney as Gen. George B. McLellan. Rooney is a man with an almost frightening vocal range and character intensity. Someone find this show, preferably with this cast, an Off-Broadway berth. It's just about ready for prime time.

Rescue Rue - Here's another one I wasn't planning to see, but I'm a NYMF juror, and they needed someone else to cover this show. I haven't had very good experiences with musicals aimed at children; people seem to think that a kids' show doesn't need to be well-written. Yeah, well, talk to the guys at Pixar about that. The book for Rescue Rue is by Stacey Weingarten, the music and lyrics by Kate Steinberg, Joshua Zecher-Ross, and Weingarten. A show that could have been twee and cutesy winds up being warm and sweet, even moving. Think Avenue Q without the sex and profanity. Oh, and the irony. Actually, just about the only things Rescue Rue shares with Avenue Q are the puppets and the ingratiating way of telling the story. The story starts with an unnamed dog (who eventually acquires the name "Rue") being kicked out into the world by an uncaring family. She meets up with her Fairy Dog Mother, who grants Rue a wish. When Rue asks for a "Happily Ever After," the Fairy Dog Mother reluctantly agrees (knowing that Happily-Ever-Afters only arrive after many trials and setbacks) and what follows is Rue's bumpy journey to her own happy end. Unlike, say, Freckleface Strawberry, Rescue Rue treats its audience with respect, offering the linear narrative and character consistencies that Freckleface sorely lacked. The resolution for Rescue Rue is so darned cute, not to mention dramatically apt, that by the end I was sniffling happily along with the rest of the audience. There's just the right touch of agitprop here in showcasing the plight of rescue dogs. Well, message received: when I get a new dog this fall, I'm defintely planning on going the rescue route.

WikiMusical - There's always at least one musical at NYMF that thinks it's a whole lot more clever and funny than it actually is. This year, that show is WikiMusical, a deceptive title, in that the users don't actually get to log in and edit the show. (If only...) The book and lyrics are by Frank Ceruzzi and Blake J. Harris, the music by Trent Jeffords. The writing here is sort of on the level of a high-school skit: sophomoric humor, awkward dialogue, and pedestrian lyrics, complete with poor scansion and slant rhyme aplenty. The story concerns two brothers who somehow get sucked inside the Internet, and need to find a way back home. What follows is an aimlessly episodic series of would-be comic set pieces that, despite fleeting moments of wit, tend to fall flat. It's the sort of show that thinks topical references (a scheming Nigerian prince, a cemetery of unsent emails, a climactic game of Mario Brothers) will automatically make it funny. Eventually we get the obligatory expository dialogue from the evildoers, attempting to bring all this muddle to a conclusion, but the denouement is thoroughly inexplicable, rivalling that of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark (the first version, before Taymor was fired). The songs feature lots of screaming and reeeeeeealllllly loooooooong noooooootes at the end. As I sat enduring the show, I couldn't help thinking of the actors in these NYMF shows, and the challenge they face of fully committing to material that is not always worthy of their talents. (I happen to know one of the performers in WikiMusical. Pumpkin, I feel your pain.)

The Gig - I was surprised to see The Gig listed among the NYMF offerings this year, mostly because I've seen the show before, some 12 years ago at the Lyric Stage in Boston. The performance rights for the show are available from Samuel French and a cast recording came out in 2008. So, what's it doing at NYMF? I can only assume that composer/lyricist/librettist Douglas J. Cohen (No Way to Treat a Lady, Children's Letters to God) thinks the show deserves another chance at the limelight, whatever that might entail. The fact that The Gig has been in development for years is quite evident: the show has a polish that few NYMF shows can boast. It's the story of an amateur jazz sextet, a bunch of middle-aged guys who get together once a week to jam. Along comes a chance at an actual paid gig, and the men take time from their careers (dentist, used-car salesman, real-estate agent, etc.) to spend two weeks in the Catskills. The show starts with an infectious opening sequence that efficiently establishes the main characters and sets the plot in motion. Cohen's score is complex and satisfying, continually taking the music in interesting directions, and reflecting a deft hand with complex group numbers. What's more, Cohen makes these people real and distinct, with easy character-based humor and an infectious sense of camaraderie. Along the way, Cohen crafts charming moments of joy and loss, while successfully avoiding schmaltz. He effectively develops the characters of all six men, while making the supporting characters real as well. That's quite a feat. I don't know what sort of future might lie ahead for The Gig, but I can say it's a terrific show, and that I hope Cohen keeps on writing.

July 15, 2014

Ah, summer. Looks like it's time for a little NYMF-ing. Well, maybe more than a little. I mean, faced with the prospect of 24 new musicals, 9 concerts, 10 development readings, and numerous workshops, I'm basically a kid in a candy store here. This will be my third year at The New York Musical Theatre Festival, my second as a juror. I just spent my first of three weekends bingeing on musicals in development, and I must say that overall I've noticed a higher quality caliber of shows than in previous years.

The good folks at NYMF seem to be doing a better job of selecting more artistically promising shows. Sure, there are still quite a few shows that will need considerable work to get anything close to produceable form, but on the whole, there's better storytelling, stronger lyrics and more mature music than I've noticed in previous years. Now, I have yet to see anything to rival the overall excellence of last year's Crossing Swords or Julian Po, but I do still have two weekends and 12 shows to go. As I have in the past, I'll be publishing three to four collections of capsule reviews. Here's my first batch, in the order in which I saw the shows:

Academia Nuts - My first NYMF show this year was Academia Nuts, a sort of would-be Spelling Bee with book and lyrics by Becca Anderson and Dan Marshall, and music by Julian Blackmore. Academia Nuts centers around a national quiz-show competition, with two teams vying for the championship, one comprising a family of home-schooled Christians, the other a more conventional-yet-still-geeky crew from a public high school. The show is certainly as funny as Spelling Bee, but as yet it's not quite as tuneful or moving. Anderson and Marshall show great promise as librettists: the scenario here is compelling and the book is at times uproarious. (One Evita-inspired pun had me rolling.) However, their lyric writing needs some work. According to their bios, the authors met at NYU in its graduate musical-theater writing workshop. Apparently NYU never covered prosody, as the lyrics to Academia Nuts are a bit too replete with faulty emphasis for my taste ("Play-TOH" for "Plato" and "high SCHOOL" being two notable examples). Blackmore's score is rather tuneless at times, although my reaction may also be the result of the colorless orchestrations and ear-splitting sound in evidence at the performance I attended. Still, in the asset column we have the extremely humorous book, plus some strong characterizations: Jennifer Simard gives the single funniest performance I've ever seen at a NYMF show, bringing a hilarious deadpan to the role of the home-schooling mother and coach of the rival team.

ValueVille - One of the biggest challenges in writing a musical is developing a consistent tone. I've seen many a developing show struggle with finding a unified voice: comedy? tragedy? black comedy? satire? ValueVille is a musical that has yet to fully establish its ideal tone. The book, lyrics, and music for ValueVille are by Rowan Casey, and in future efforts Casey might be wise to take on some collaborators. Almost all of the show's songs are generic, with blandly unspecific lyrics. If you were to just listen to the score, you would have no idea what was going on in the show. But the main problem here is the book, which tries unsuccessfully to shift back and forth between knockabout comedy and grave contemplation. At first, ValueVille appears to be a light-hearted satire of big-box discount stores, but eventually it turns into a sort of tragicomic take on Sartre's No Exit. Casey never really makes it clear as to exactly what's going on. I mean, there's mystery and there's muddle. You're allowed to challenge the audience, but not to baffle them. ValueVille left me baffled. The internal logic of the show is inconsistent; characters react with shock to events that they should already be used to. Casey's book does reflect some intelligence and humor, but by the end the show becomes irritatingly ponderous, with ham-fisted attempts at deeper meaning and bland proclamations about the true meaning of life and love.

Searching for Romeo - Unlike ValueVille, Searching for Romeo has a triple-threat author who seems more than up to all three tasks. This charming show is by Brian Sutton, and it's one of the most promising shows I've seen at NYMF this year. Searching for Romeo is a modern, comic riff on Romeo and Juliet, except from the perspective of two relatively minor characters: Rosaline and Paris. It's sort of like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead, but far more light-hearted in tone, and without the philosophical wordplay. Sutton's music is extremely pleasant, retro pop, tuneful and infectious. Sutton seems to have strong instincts about which moments to musicalize, and is especially adept at creating opportunities for multiple characters to sing about the same subject, thus creating engaging duets, trios, even sextets. The lyrics reflect a fair amount of slant rhyme, but in this case it seems defensible in light of Shakespeare's frequent use of eye rhyme. The story is told in a sort of daydream, as a young women drifts off in English class while the class is reading Romeo and Juliet aloud. This presents Sutton with the opportunity of mixing modern lingo with Shakesperean meter and phrasing to deft comic effect. The dialogue features Shakespeare puns and allusions aplenty, which might have been more groan-worthy in less capable hands. The show has some transition issues to work out, but on the whole seems in terrific shape already. The NYMF production featured a particularly strong ensemble of players, including a valiant director's assistant by the name of Dan Drew, who at the eleventh hour stepped into the male lead role, script in hand, when the original actor fell ill. Bravo, dude.

Cloned - Each year, NYMF seems to feature at least one campy mad-scientist musical, usually with mixed results. This year, there's Cloned, and the results are on the whole better than with previous entries in this NYMF subgenre. The book is by Jacey Powers and Dan Wolpow, lyrics by Dan Wolpow, and music by Adam Spiegel. Cloned features a very promising scenario, clever comic dialogue, and strong storytelling. A young scientist is trying to invent a teleportation machine, but accidentally winds up closing himself and others. The show takes a while to warm up, but eventually features some wonderfully humorous sequences. One problem might be the borderline racist landlord character, a la Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but that could easily be toned down. Overall the story works; would that I could say the same about the score. When the music in Cloned isn't bland, it's rather unappealing, sometimes painful. Spiegel demonstrates little gift for tonality here, although the uptempo songs fair slightly better than the ballads. The NYMF production features a very solid cast overall, with three particularly strong performances from John Alban Coughlan as Dr. Marshall, the mad professor; Matthew Knowland as Fizz, the stoner roommate; and Crystal Kellogg as Sharon Stone. Yes, that Sharon Stone. With some work, Cloned could be a winner. Well, if about half of the songs were replaced, or at least got some more euphonious music.

Somewhere With You - Sometimes, when I'm watching a show, I have to remind myself that there's no such thing as a bad idea, only poor execution. Somewhere With You was a major challenge in this respect. The show has a book by Peter Zinn, music and lyrics by JT Harding. On paper here, there's absolutely nothing that I would normally respond to. The score is wall-to-wall country music, a genre to which I have no connection. The characters are essentially white-trash crystal-meth addicts and their ilk, one of whom volunteers for the National Guard and is deployed to Iraq. Not my music, not my people, not my world. So you need to make me care. And I didn't. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the show, other than these were unsympathetic people involved in an increasingly unpleasant series of events. Yes, musicals can feature bad people and tragic circumstances, but you need to have the artistic chops to make it work. The score for Somewhere With You apparently includes songs that have already been hits on the country charts, which is probably why a number of them felt generic. Other songs felt in questionable taste, including one for the resident psychopathic drug dealer about the phone sex he has every Friday night while in prison, complete with scantily clad maidens writhing in the foreground. The book has some significant dramaturgical issues regarding who knows what and when, and features a number of scenes that are of questionable relevance, including a bizarre one-off song about a character who has shot a bunch of Iraqi children. We've never seen the character before and never see him again. I think part of my negative reaction to the show came in response to the exaggerated friends-and-family applause from the audience at the performance I caught. Never a good idea, folks.

August 01, 2013

This past month, I saw 25 musicals in 17 days. Even for me, that's a lot. Eighteen of those shows were at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). As one might expect, many of those shows were either in need of serious revision or were probably beyond repair. It would have been easy to become discouraged about the musical form.

But, I actually had a much higher NYMF hit rate this year than last year. Out of those 18 shows, three were outstanding, albeit in need of some tweaks: Julian Po, Legacy Falls, and Crossing Swords. That's about 16%, which is quite remarkable when you think that all these shows are still under development, plus the fact that I'm pretty darned difficult to please.

We all owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the good folks at NYMF, and NAMT, and The O'Neill, and the Goodspeed, and all the other wonderful programs out there that give new artists and works a chance to grow. If I took anything away from NYMF this year, it's that there are tons of people interested in creating and seeing new musicals. Thanks to NYMF, these two sets of people have the opportunity to come together and celebrate the art form they love.

I was one of the NYMF jurors this year, so I had to chance to weigh in on the Awards for Excellence that some of these shows received. In this, my final roundup of NYMF reviews, I make note below of where I and my distinguished fellow jurors concur, and also where we disagree.

Crossing Swords - Hands-down, the most promising show I saw at NYMF this year, Crossing Swords is a charming modern take on Cyrano de Bergerac. The book, music and lyrics are all by Joe Slabe, a fact that makes the show all the more remarkable. Crossing Swords concerns a student production of Cyrano, which Slabe uses as the backdrop of a more present-day love triangle: boy loves girl, girl loves other boy, second boy loves first boy. We also have the male and female teachers who act as chaperon and director, respectively. Slabe's characters are rich and fully realized in a way that the authors of some other NYMF shows -- Volleygirls and Gary Goldfarb in particular -- could learn from. Slabe has also crafted an accomplished score, full of charming tunes, touching moments, and ambitious counterpoint. What's more, he deftly interweaves song and dialogue, particularly effective in a song at the end of act one that brings all five characters together for a dramatically compelling finaletto.The show has a few problems: the male teacher has a back story about a fallen WWII comrade that doesn't reach fruition. The show seems to imply that the relationship was romantic, but then toward the end of the show, the male teacher responds amorously to the female teacher's kiss. There's also the continued reference to an off-stage character, Hopkins, that isn't quite satisfying. In fact, the resolution of this plot line felt a little trans-phobic, or at least trans-insensitive. Crossing Swords won NYMF awards in direction and music direction. It also won an award for its book, plus a well-deserved outstanding performance award for Steven Hauck as the male teacher. I would also have given the show best music and best ensemble, although the show did receive honorable mentions in both categories. I eagerly await the next incarnation of Crossing Swords, as well as the future work of the talented Mr. Slabe.

Volleygirls - This big winner at the NYMF awards this year was Volleygirls, picking up Best Ensemble, Most Promising New Musical, the "Best of Fest" audience favorite award, among others. The show is certainly a crowd-pleaser, but I didn't find it particularly well crafted. (Book by Rob Ackerman, music by Eli Bolin, lyrics by Sam Fromin.) The scenario is promising: an English teacher at local high school was also once an Olympic volleyball competitor. The principal calls upon her to coach the school's girls' volleyball team, which forces her to confront her embarrassing gaffe at the Olympics. The production featured the rather distracting element of having the entire cast on-stage most of the time, with cast members visibly reacting in ways that seemed inconsistent with their characters. Even more damning were two irredeemably irritating characters -- one, the mother of one of the players, and another, the daughter of the principal -- who are each painted as gross caricatures. The mom is cartoonishly evil, and the teen is insufferably belligerent. (The painfully abrasive song "I'm in Hell" had me audibly agreeing with the character.) Sure, characters can have negative traits, or even be evil, but you have to develop them in a way that's believable. And then, at the end of the show, each of the characters pulls a convenient 180 that's totally out of step with her previous development. One of the main attractions for this production was the always delightful Susan Blackwell, who, despite some evident vocal fry, does not disappoint. But then Blackwell probably just fell victim to the chief mode of communication between all of these characters: screaming, both during songs and during scenes. Clearly, I'm in a minority here, but I can't imagine enjoying any future incarnation of Volleygirls unless it undergoes some significant rewrites.

Gary Goldfarb: Master Escapist - This show picked up two NYMF awards: Best Lyrics and a distinguished performance award for lead actor, Jared Loftin. Loftin was certainly a worthy performer, but the show surrounding that performance was a gawd-awful mess. I have no idea what my fellow NYMF jurors saw in these lyrics, replete as they are with reversed syntax, poor scansion, and clumsy attempts at rhyming. (The book and lyrics are by Omri Schein, music by James Olmstead.) Gary Goldfarb concerns the plight of the eponymous Gary and his desire to do his magic act in his high-school talent show. The show clearly thinks it ought to be a laugh riot, but it isn't nearly as funny as it thinks it is. The staging featured tons of awkward comic business that simply didn't land. What's worse, Gary is encircled by an extremely unappealing cast of characters, from his harridan mother, to his rival magician, to the school pretty boy and pretty girl, all of whom actively conspire to make Gary's life miserable. Everyone tortures Gary for being fat, except the girl in the wheelchair, who has a thing for Gary. But the other characters also taunt the handicapped girl relentlessly. Yeah, shows have a right to showcase unpleasant activities, but it wasn't entirely clear to me that the authors weren't enjoying the taunting, particularly during a painfully unfunny song that Gary sings to the crippled girl, called "You'll Never Walk Over Me." (Get it? Oh, I tell you, that's a knee-slapper.) What's more, like Volleygirls, Gary Goldfarb features two characters that change on a dime at the end of the show without the slightest hint of development. Gary's mom, who has unrelentingly derided Gary for his interest in magic, is suddenly the proud Jewish mother when the talent show comes around. And the school bully has a similarly out-of-the-blue...change of team, shall we say? I can't say that I saw much in Gary Goldfarb worth salvaging.

Marry Harry - One of the benefits that NYMF affords to the writers and composers who participate is the opportunity to see their shows performed by Broadway-caliber performers. Ironically, that can also be a liability: It can be hard to determine whether material is working because it's good or whether the pros are giving it more polish than it deserves. Such was, I think, part of the problem with Marry Harry, an amiable but awkward show with book by Jennifer Robbins, music by Dan Martin, and lyrics by Michael Biello. The cast of Marry Harry featured some really strong established performers, including Philip Hoffman, Jane Summerhays, and Annie Golden, plus two really strong newer faces, Jillian Louis and Robb Sapp. Perhaps with a less accomplished cast, the authors might have had more of an opportunity to see what's wrong with the show. Marry Harry centers around a struggling family restaurant and the son who wants to leave to become a chef, not just a cook. We also have the female landlord whose daughter is about to get married, but whose fiance dumps her right before the wedding. The young man and young woman go out on a date and impulsively agree to be married. The rest of the drama hinges on the repercussions of this hasty decision. For a good portion of the show, the story works, aided by some lovely character songs. But right now, the charming aspects of the show are overshadowed by some rather unbelievable plot developments, the worst of which involves the young woman becoming jealous when a female performance artist captures herself kissing the young man on film and uses it in her act. First, the two numbers for the performance artist were woefully out of sync with the style of the rest of the show. But, more to the point, the young women now calls off the wedding, but in a way that feels completely out of character. It felt manufactured, as though act two needed a lift and this was the best the authors could come up with. Even worse was an incredibly offensive song in which a Caucasian actor plays an Asian waiter, singing about the couple in sing-song-y pidgin English. Overall, Marry Harry shows some merit, but it will likely need more prep before it's ready for public consumption.

Castle Walk - Just before my final NYMF weekend, I taught the last lesson in my summer course on the history of musical-theater dance. During the course, we not only discussed the big-name dance greats, like Jerome Robbins and Agnes de Mille, we also discuss the significant precursors and influences, such as minstrelsy and social dance. Two prominent figures in the social dance discussion were Irene and Vernon Castle, largely forgotten today, but who in their time had an enormous impact on popularizing ballroom dance, in particular their signature Castle Walk. When I heard that one of this year's NYMF shows would tell the story of the Castles, I knew I had to take it in. The show Castle Walk takes place mostly during the filming of the Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire film, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle. Vernon has died, and Irene is serving as technical consultant for the film, but it quickly becomes clear that the studio doesn't really want her input. The drama in the show comes from the increasing tension between Irene and the film director, as she continues to object to the various liberties that the movie is taking with her story. The frustrating thing about Castle Walk is that is feels so professionally crafted, but it doesn't yet add up to a satisfying show. The book, music and lyrics, all by Milton Granger, never feel less than polished. It's just that he show isn't very exciting. Oh, it's wistful, and heartfelt, but it's also just a wee bit dull. When Irene starts schooling a group of dancers on how to do the Castle Walk, Granger gives a a mini dance-history lesson: prior to the Castles, dance was either stuffy or lewd. The Castles made it elegant and fun. Suddenly I was in, but only momentarily. The production reflected great skill in both the performances and the presentation. Lynne Wintersteller as Irene was superb, with a glorious voice and the ability to convey a great deal of character in even the slightest glance. Both Wintersteller's performance and the show's copious dance were recognized by the NYMF jurors, and rightly so. By the end of the show, I found myself wishing that Granger could find a way to breathe a little more life into his show. The subject matter is certainly compelling. What it needs is a little inspiration.

July 27, 2013

Here's round-up number three, out of four, of my reviews of the shows at this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). As in my previous review round-ups, there's a fairly wide range of quality represented here, but in this batch, most of the shows were aiming at comedy.

The operative word here is "aiming." Some hit a comedic bulls-eye, while others missed the target entirely, hitting a wayward barnyard animal in a completely different county. As any writer, actor, director, or any other person in the business will tell you, comedy is hard. It doesn't seem hard when you're watching it, because the best comedy feels effortless. But, chances are, a whole lot of effort went into that seeming effortlessness, as the following shows will bear witness to.

Stay tuned for my final batch of reviews in the days to come.

Legacy Falls - I genuinely never thought that I would so thoroughly enjoy a musical about a soap opera, of all things. But, as I've said many times, it's all about execution. And Legacy Falls, while not without its flaws, has a tremendous amount going for it: an appealing score (music and lyrics by James Burn) rich characterizations, and a genuinely humorous book (by Burn and Ian Poitier). The plot concerns the efforts of the TV show's new producer to save the thirty-year-old program from cancellation. Rumors abound that some catastrophic event will occur in the plot of the soap to get rid of some old faces and make room for new blood. Some of the actors, including the show's male lead, have been with the show since its inception. Just as he's wondering whether it's time to move on, he falls in love with a younger man who works for the TV show's sponsor. Word gets out about the formerly closeted star, and the plot thickens both on and off the screen. The appeal of Legacy Falls the musicallies both in the genuinely lovely moments for the central lovers, as well as in some terrific numbers for the delightfully bitchy female soap stars. The show could use some work: there's a bit too much slant rhyme for my taste, and act two could use a bit of pruning. But, on the whole, Legacy Falls is an eminently enjoyable musical that I hope to see have a significant life after NYMF.

Mother Divine - It sounded pretty good on paper: Father Divine is a charismatic Harlem preacher during the Depression. His wife, Mother Divine, becomes gravely ill, but since he's supposed to be this faith healer, he hides her away in a rundown hospital. When Mother Divine passes on, Father tries to pass off this buxom blond as the new fleshly incarnation of his wife, and Mother comes back from the afterlife to set things straight. You'd think with this setup the show might be replete with rousing gospel numbers and the comedic wisdom of some sassy African American women, neck rolls and all. Instead we get some rather thin characterizations, songs with very little shape or craft, and many forced attempts at comic business. (Book and lyrics are by Laurel Klinger Vartabedian, music by Bill Evans.) Particularly painful were the would-be comic ministrations of Mother Divine and her dealings with a cartoonish IRS agent, played here but the normally reliable Howie Michael Smith. But because the scenes are underwritten and the direction almost nonexistent, Smith is forced into paroxysms of comic desperation in an ill-fated effort to make the scenes work. The show gains a bit of momentum when Mother Divine comes back via seance at the end of act one, but by that point the damage is done. One decent number can't redeem an act that's otherwise been devoid of craft.

Boys Will Be Boys - The first thing I noticed when I sat down to watch Boys Will Be Boys was a sign over the set that said "American Legion, Post 69." Uh-oh, I thought. Is that an example of the level of wit we could expect from the show? Sadly, yes. The premise is appealing enough: Four gay guys and a gal pal have supposedly put together this review as a benefit for "Gay-DD," the inability to focus on any trend for more than a few weeks. Not bad. But what follows often feels like a never-ending barrage of bitchery and labored puns about "openings," "holes," "balls," and "wood." There's even an ode to Viagra called...wait for it..."You Lift Me Up." The show is not without charm, nor the writing without craft. The book and lyrics are by Joe Miloscia, the music by Kenneth Kacmar. Miloscia seems at his best when trafficking in pastiche, as when he crafts genuinely witty homages to "Some People" from Gypsy and "Somewhere That's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors. And there are some moving moments in the show, particularly a very sweet song called "A Giant in My Eyes," the title of which is thankfully not a double entendre. But the benefit concept just sort of peters out, and the final number is rather limp. (Sorry. Couldn't help myself.)Still, the show is not without charm, and might find opportunities for summer runs in Provincetown or other gay havens.

The Pirates of Finance - As you can probably tell from the title, The Pirates of Finance is based on the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Specifically, author Charles Veley has taken the music of Sir Arthur Sullivan and crafted new lyrics to tell a modern comic tale of financial misdeeds and derring-do. Veley would seem to be quite the G&S aficionado, and he seems to have the narrative and physical chops to do Sir Arthur Sullivan's music a certain amount of justice. The story features an idealistic young man, Frederick Freemarket, who has just inherited a Wall Street financial company from his uncle. The financial markets are in crisis, but Frederick's uncle, before he died, invented a "cash machine" that can sort through all of the worthless derivatives in the marketplace and find buyers for them. Enter a corporate raider called Mr. Behemoth who openly plots to take over the company and proceed to rule the world. That's certainly a setup of which Sir William Schwenck Gilbert would approve. Some of Veley's plot logic felt a bit wonky, even for a G&S piece. Gilbert and Sullivan shows may often be ridiculous, but at least the made a certain offbeat sense. Sometimes Veley's characters react in ways that seem inconsistent with their development, as when the normally placid Freemarket starts singing about perpetrating violence in a passage based on "Away, Away" from The Pirates of Penzance. At other times, the point of an entire number will remain opaque, as when the female CFO is supposedly trying to distract Behemoth with something tantalizing about a file full of toxic assets. Honestly, I have no idea what was going on here. But the show, for the most part, shows promise, and features some very apt repurposing of Sullivan's music. The show could benefit from being much shorter, maybe ninety minutes with no intermission, as some of the comic business grows attenuated. But, true to the spirit of G&S, the show ends with a series of ridiculous revelations and coincidences that lovingly strain credulity. But, this time, the nonsense makes sense.

July 24, 2013

A few days ago, I published my first of four batches of capsule reviews from the 2013 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). At this point, I have seen 13 NYMF shows in all, and I will be seeing another 5 shows this weekend, just before the end of the festival on Sunday.

As always with these new-works programs, the results have been mixed. Some of the shows are very ambitious, but don't have the creative chops to deliver on their vision. Others just want to have fun, but the creators have come smack up against that age-old theatrical truism: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."

As I've said many times, quality is always the exception. And out of the 13 shows I've seen so far, two of those shows have been of what I would regard as exceptional quality, or showing enough promise to expect exceptional quality once the shows are fully developed. That's 15%, which ain't all that bad when you think about it. One of those shows is represented in the reviews below. The other will featured in my next batch of reviews. Stay tuned for two more review roundups in the days to come.

Swiss Family Robinson - NYMF always seems to have a few family offerings in the mix. If you've never seen the movie or read the book, the eponymous Robinson family has just escaped by boat from Switzerland after the French have invaded. They run into a storm at sea, and are shipwrecked on an island, only to be confronted with a ship of French "pirates" and a mysterious group female naturalists. The show, with a book by Patrick Kennedy and John Kennedy, and music and lyrics by John Kennedy, clearly has ambitions of becoming a large-scale family musical, and while the show needs significant work, overall it felt worthy of additional development. The music has melodic appeal, and there are fun group numbers and some very touching moments, including a song for the Robinson mother and father with a yodeling motif. Some of the dialog feels artificial. One character exclaims, "This must be a deserted island," as soon as they've landed on a beach. Um, how would anyone know that it was even an island from simply landing on a beach, let alone conclude it was deserted? Much of the humor is rather groan-worthy, including a joke about becoming a cheese-maker: "I always thought your story was full of holes." There's also a joke brazenly stolen from Fiddler on the Roof: "May God bless and keep [the French]...far away from us." But perhaps most in need of fixing are the dramaturgical holes. The song motivations are often unclear, particularly for the act one finale. The amazons have captured the family and the French, and start singing something about jungle drums, which is supposed to somehow give us some information about why these mysterious women are there, but the song explains nothing. The act ends with a confusing thud involving one of the sons exclaiming he can explain the mystery. Then at the top of act two, everyone has escaped the amazons, but it's never explained how. The topic only briefly returns as a rather clumsy song cue,
but then gets conveniently swept aside. But, again, there's enough promise here for the show to proceed through another draft or two.

Julian Po - Easily one of the best shows I've seen at NYMF so far, Julian Po has a great deal of ambition, and the creators seem to have the chops to deliver. It helps that the NYMF production had a superior cast of Broadway pros, including Chad Kimball, Malcolm Gets, Sean Cullen, and the delectable Luba Mason. But the piece itself is strong as well, with book and lyrics by Andrew Barrett, and music by Ira Antelis. (Full disclosure: Barrett graduated from the Boston Conservatory, but was never one of my students.) The residents of a very small town in Middle America become fascinated by the arrival of a saturnine stranger who plans to kill himself, but who then proceeds to transform all of their lives. That's a really tricky premise to pull off, but the authors are already tantalizingly close to success. The show features a series of quirky, complex characterizations, and depends upon a darkly humorous tone tinged with irony, and so far the authors are successfully achieving the proper balance. There's beautiful character work in both ballads and uptempo numbers. A few things that need ironing out: the Greek-chorus/singing-band-members conceit wasn't working, partly because the authors haven't yet fully committed to the idea, but also because the band members weren't very strong singers, which was distracting. The lyrics feature some unfortunate clichés, including the dreaded "strength to carry on." The denouement feels like something out of Shirley Jackson short story, which is fine, except there's a confusing tag at the very end of the show, which I still haven't quite figured out. But overall Julian Po is worth looking out for, particularly if the production can hold on to this stellar slate of performers.

Dizzy Miss Lizzie's Roadside Revue Presents 'The Brontës' - Again, dying is easy. Comedy is hard. Here's a show that illustrates both, as it is essentially about the early deaths of the four Brontë siblings: Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell. The show is apparently one in a series of would-be comic concerts from DC-based comedy troupe, Dizzy Miss Lizzie's Roadside Revue. With its concert setup and snarky tone, the show seems to be aiming for Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson or Passing Strange, but so far it's not nearly as smart or moving as either of those shows. Where's Alex Timbers when you need him? (Apparently working on every show in the current Broadway pipeline, but I digress...) The conceit: A band of gypsies visit the Brontë household to help the siblings "finish their stories." A promising setup. Unfortunately, the songs feel generic; many are only tangentially related to the story. Every once in a while, we get an integrated number,
such as "Haughty Blue Bloods, Naughty Brats," which concerns the
experience as a governess of one of the Brontë sisters. But most of the songs could just as easily be in another show, or no show at all. What's more, the quality of the singing was often wincingly bad, particularly when the songs involved vocal harmony. There were times when the intonation was so off that I wanted to plug my ears, but I was seated in the second row of a very small theater and didn't want to be rude. The show features some moving moments, and some humorous elements, but at present there's not enough of either to make for a satisfying show.

Feather - In my previous roundup, I felt guilty for dumping on a well-meaning but quality-deprived effort from a group of musical-theater students. This time, I'm afraid I need to rain on the parade of Feather, a show with extremely worthy intentions, but one for which ambition appears to exceed ability. Feather has a book and lyrics by Jeremy Culver, music by Charleene Closshey, and features additional songs by Nick Everett and Liesl Karlsson. One huge problem with the show it its current form is that the narrative remains opaque until some 25 minutes into the piece. During that time, we're treated to dance performances by young ethnically diverse performers, multimedia projections, a children's choir, and an artist creating a painting live on stage. What we don't get is any specific sense of the story. Shows need to make their point clear, or at least establish their general universe, within the first five minutes. You don't have to provide all the answers, but you at least need to make the question clear. We eventually discover that Feather will involve a very serious story about a married couple, one a photojournalist and one a human-rights lawyer, and the husband's efforts to provide aid for a group of young refugees from the current conflict in Syria. Again, praise-worthy stuff. The show even features a commercial of sorts for Save the Children, which is noble, albeit heavy-handed. But the authors so far haven't done justice to their admittedly worthy subject matter. Even after the plot becomes clear, the show features banal dialog, rudimentary music, and awkward, ponderous lyrics. Sample dialog: "Every day, as I walk down the street, a million dreams walk by each other." Sample lyric: "To who does it matter that I should be fulfilled? To who does it matter that I should choose to yield?" Forget the bad grammar, this is just awkward phrasing, and features a terrible attempt at rhyming. Feather wants to be both a moving love story and rousing agitprop, but unfortunately it succeeds at neither.

July 18, 2013

I've never really been a summer person. I get bored at the beach, and I assiduously avoid the sun. Thankfully, summer provides lots of heavily air-conditioned theater-going opportunities, what with various regional houses and their summer offerings, plus the new-works festivals in New York City. Last year, I spent an inordinate amount of time seeing shows at the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF), both as a critic and as an educator. In fact, we presented one of the shows that I caught at NYMF last summer, Shelter, as part of our new-works program at the Boston Conservatory.

I'll be seeing about 18 or so of the NYMF shows this year, and will be presenting my capsule reviews here on my blog. So far the festival has been full of highs and lows, representing a surprisingly wide range on the quality scale, much wider in fact than I encountered last year. In other words, I've already seen shows that are far better and far worse than anything I saw at NYMF 2012. And I'm not even halfway through. This will be my first of four NYMF review roundups. Look for the others in the days to come.

Songs for a More Funnier World - One of the more promising entries so far at NYMF this year was actually the first show on my docket, this smart little four-person revue by Stuart McMeans and a bunch of additional composers. The show seems to be aiming for the territory of I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, or even better, Closer Than Ever. The songs are all about modern life in the big city, with a much more generous dose of gay culture than those previous two shows. Satiric targets include many of the usual suspects: self-satisfied yuppies, men who won't commit, awkward first dates, etc. And the show definitely needs a rewrite or two to iron out some dull patches, to cut some bits that aren't working, and to put more of a satisfying finish on each of the numbers. But there's enough genuine craft here already that I'm encouraged both by future prospects for the show (perhaps an Off Broadway run at Westside Arts) and for McMeans and his composing partners and their future efforts.

The Dead Legend - It feels churlish beyond words to dump on this show, but alas dump on it I must. The Dead Legend is a collective effort by one Michael Gilboe and the musical-theater students from the University of Great Falls in Montana. It seems clear that this was a labor of love on the parts of these students, and they must be quite proud of bringing their original work to New York City. The premise is intriguing: the show takes place at a sort of afterlife after-hours bar, with various dead celebrities dressed as the character or persona with which they are most associated (Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale, Humphrey Bogart as Rick Baine, etc.). A mysterious stranger dressed in black appears among them, and it becomes clear that in order to pass through to their reward, the celebrities must relinquish their additiction to fame. Again, intriguing. However, the quality of the writing is quite painfully low. The songs have very little structure, many lacking any discernible tune. What's more, the writers didn't even try to capture the idiom of, say, Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe. I applaud these students and their mentors for having the guts to write their own show and raise the money to bring it to New York. But the show itself is unlikely to have any, you should pardon the pun, afterlife.

Life Could Be a Dream - Another highlight from my early festival selections was Life Could Be a Dream, a jukebox show compiled by Roger Bean, the man responsible for the entertaining The Marvelous Wonderettes. Life Could Be a Dream concerns the efforts of four regular guys trying to put together a close-harmony male quartet during the Four Seasons era. The show needs work, but it already has a certain charm, particularly it terms of its vivid characterizations and slick, professional staging. There's a certain inconsistency as to when these folks are performing in character versus singing diegetic numbers, which needs cleaning up. There are some hints at the homosexuality of one of the characters, mostly for comic purposes, but this gets conveniently brushed aside when the guys start vying for the attentions of the female love interest. Whereas act one could use some trimming, act two needs a major makeover, particularly in terms of ramping up the conflict, which dissipates at the end of act one. The second act also needs better song integration. As it stands, it feels like a dull slog through a seemingly forced series of numbers. Act two also features some ponderous, forced dialog when the going gets serious. As I said, Life Could Be a Dream does show promise, but it needs another draft or two before it can be considered in the same league as Bean's delightful Wonderettes.

The Awakening of Angel DeLuna - I can tell a show isn't quite soup yet when I start asking questions like, "Who is this person, and why should I care?" Or, "What is this song supposed to be telling me?" Or, "Why is this character reacting this way?" I asked all these questions and more while watching The Awakening of Angel DeLuna (book and lyrics by Judylynn Smith, music by Lee Ellis), a well-meaning and occasionally touching show that takes place at a formerly family-owned circus. The show starts with a trapeze act that ends badly. Then we see a hobo singing, and it's not immediately clear who he is. It turns out he's the guy on the trapeze, but he looks nothing like the guy who played his younger self, so it was confusing. Angel DeLuna is full of these moments, raising questions as to the motivations of the characters, the purpose of musical numbers, and the believability and meaning of plot developments. The hobo, called Ollie, gets a job with the circus as a clown in the hope of rekindling his love for Angel, his trapeze partner, who's still with the circus. The nefarious new circus owner discovers Ollie's identity almost from the start, yet quizzically allows Ollie to remain. Despite some pedestrian lyrics, the ballads have charm, but the uptempo numbers are almost universally clumsy. The production also makes the same mistake as the current Broadway production of Pippin, featuring acrobatic acts that upstage the intent of the numbers they accompany. And yet, the show has a certain appeal, particularly in the character of Angel, who after suffering a fall from the trapeze, now thinks she is an actual angel awaiting her wings. It sounds twee, but the show handles this particularly well. And the final trapeze moment was extremely touching. So, enough promise here to warrant some more work, but there's much work to do.

Sasquatched - Each year, NYMF seems to include a show or two aiming for the ironic, high-camp status of, say, Bat Boy or Little Shop of Horrors. This year, we have Sasquatched, (music, book and lyrics by Phil Darg), which is essentially about the eponymous creature (tremendously misunderstood, of course), and a young boy who becomes lost in the woods. Surrounding them we have the boy-hunt and concomitant media circus. It's not a bad idea, and the story flows reasonably well. Darg chooses such apt satiric targets as "helicopter" parents and reality TV shows. But then the numbers themselves aren't particularly funny, or are humorous in conception only. And then there's the would-be comic set piece about incidental characters who don't have any lines and are thus reduced to spouting "rhubarb" over and over. What this is supposed to have to do with a show about Bigfoot I can scarcely surmise. The show is also irrevocably hampered by derivative music and painfully repetitive lyrics, although there are fleeting touches of genuine wit in the dialog and staging. Sasquatched also makes the mistake of introducing the eponymous hairy guy himself in the second number of the show with a banal, repetitive, introspective ballad, robbing the beginning of the show of any comic momentum. I get the sense that future sightings of Sasquatched will be rare indeed.

Finally, a general note: I have yet to encounter a show at NYMF that didn't fall back on that laziest of lyrical faults: slant rhyme. Even the best NYMF shows have exhibited the tendency to rhyme "girl" with "world," or "drama" with "karma," or "colder" with "over." Have we as musical-theater practitioners completely given up on getting the rhyme right? Must we all slide en masse into the indolent assonance of popular music? As my friend Geoff so aptly puts it in quoting Madame Armfeldt, "Where's craft?"

August 08, 2012

Here's the fourth and final installment of my capsule reviews from this year's New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Click here to read my first, second, and third installments. My sincere thanks to the good folks at NYMF for allowing me such open and ready access to all of the NYMF shows.

It's thanks to NYMF and the other new-works projects around the country that so many people who are interested in writing new musicals are able to find the support they need to bring their ideas to the stage. Whenever someone trots out that tired old bit about musical theater being dead, or on its last legs, I think of the hundreds upon hundreds of submissions to NYMF, the National Music Theater Conference at the O'Neill Theater Center, the New York International Fringe Festival, the Festival of New Artists at the Goodspeed, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT), not to mention the numerous regional and nonprofit companies that actively seek and nurture new works. The economic model may have changed since the "golden age" of musicals, but there's still plenty of interest not only in creating musical theater, but in attending it as well.

Sure, most of these shows won't make it to Broadway, or even anywhere close to it. But if it weren't for these programs, we might never have seen such interesting and entertaining new works as Urinetown, Next to Normal, [title of show], Altar Boyz, The Great American Trailer Park Musical, Gutenberg! The Musical, Yank!, Avenue Q, Nine, In the Heights, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Children of Eden, The Drowsy Chaperone, Songs for a New World, I Love You Because, and Striking 12.

I can't wait until next year's festival.

Zapata is a rather curious concoction with music and lyrics by Peter Edwards, book by Peter and Ana Edwards. The show attempts to draw a parallel between the revolutionary activities of Emiliano Zapata and the Occupy Wall Street movement. The result, while well-meaning, is strident, clumsy, and forced. It feels as though the show had been in development long before the Occupy protests, and then the authors, spying an opportunity to give the show modern resonance, tacked on a present-day prologue and epilogue. The connection seems tenuous: Zapata's story is one of violent uprising against brutal oppressors. At one point in the show, one of the characters says, "Violence is unavoidable. It's the only language these dogs understand." So, how exactly is the Occupy movement supposed to use Zapata's story as inspiration? The best that the writers can seem to come up with is the lame blandishment to "keep on fighting." The show even gives one of the characters a ludicrous "vision" of a future righteous struggle (i.e. Occupy), along with the exhortation that "our fight made it possible." Beyond the questionable nature of the message, the show itself is a bit of a mess. The story itself is compelling, but it gets mired in clunky expository dialog, manufactured drama, contrived resolutions, and plot threads that seemingly appear out of nowhere. The characters are mostly two-dimensional, and frequently make choices that have scant justification in the events as described. The lyrics are rife with cliches ("I'd rather die a thousand deaths than let my people down") and uninspired proclamations ("Children make this life worth living"). The show's music is not without merit, reflecting a stirring sense of the Mexican musical idiom, and the movement and battle sequences (choreographed by Luis Salgado) have a certain dramatic effectiveness, including the neat theatrical device of a rhythmic dancer who appears to portend significant moments of violence and death. But Zapata has quite a few rewrites ahead of it if the show is going to have any sort of commercial future.

Another NYMF show that has a rewrite or two ahead of it is The Groove Factory, with book by Chad Kessler and David James Boyd, music and lyrics by David James Boyd. The story involves a sort of Willy Wonka-inspired quest to win tickets to the big 1999 New Year's Eve party at the titular Groove Factory, a New York City dance club. The show's central character is Chazz Goodhart (groan), a young gay man who wants to escape from the trailer park and find fame and success as a club DJ. What really kills the buzz of The Groove Factory is the whiplash-inducing change of tone at the end of the show.The first 70 minutes or so seems to celebrate the drug-fueled, superficial club lifestyle, but then, as if to expiate its hedonistic sins, the show tries to shoehorn in a tragic, cautionary tale at the end. The Groove Factory wants to have its crystal meth and eat it, too. It starts as a sort of campy romp, which is not completely without humor or appeal, and there are some interesting characterizations along the way. But once we get to the club, the show degrades considerably. We then witness a tiresome parade of songs celebrating various drugs: ecstasy, methamphetamine, Special K, etc. The show then concludes with its baleful twist and some bland moralizing ("Music is the only drug I need"), followed by an artificially upbeat final number about this being the "best of times," despite the dire proceedings we've just witnessed. Let me be clear here: I'm not objecting to the apparent message of the show. I'm taking issue with the way the show is currently executed, which doesn't come near to doing its let's-get-high-on-life credo any justice.

One of the most powerful and promising shows to emerge from NYMF this year was Shelter, with book and lyrics by Brittany Bullen, music by Brittany Bullen and Newell Bullen. As the name might suggest, the show takes place in a women's homeless shelter and weaves together the stories of a number of different women, both those who populate the shelter and those who work there. At this stage in the show's development, its key assets are the passion and power of these women and their stories, and some dynamite character ballads. The story is strong and the characters are compelling, and there's a great deal of very real, very raw writing at the center of the show. Shelter definitely needs some shaping and streamlining: there are a few too many characters for the show to adequately develop, the dramatic intent of some of the songs is unclear, and the character motivations don't always make sense. There were also some significant tone problems in the NYMF version of the show, including the character of the shelter's cook, who seemed like an artificial attempt at comic relief. Also, the number that opened act two, in which a trio of two-dimensionally perky saleswomen try to recruit the shelter women into selling Avon-like cosmetics, wasn't working at all. (The authors tell me that both the cook character and the cosmetics song have been cut.) But there's a really powerful piece at the core of Shelter, and I'm very eager to see not only how the show develops, but also how the Bullens continue to develop as musical-theater artists.

One of the break-out hits of NYMF this year, at least in terms of attendance, was Re-Animator: The Musical. The show's festival popularity was likely based on the name recognition of the H.P Lovecraft title, the 1985 cult film based on the book, and the presence in the cast of "Cheers" alum George Wendt. Re-Animator is yet another in a line of intentionally campy musicals trying to recapture the magic of Little Shop of Horrors or Bat Boy. Instead, we get something a bit closer to Evil Dead: The Musical orThe Toxic Avenger, at least in terms of the quality of the writing (i.e. low). Re-Animator got off to a shaky start with an opening number of which I wasn't able to understand a word. Perhaps this was a sound-level issue, or the loud, lifeless synthesizer accompaniment, but the dull drone of the tuneless music itself wasn't helping. The score by one Mark Nutter exhibits little if any compositional flare, although some of the songs did occasionally approach something resembling a melody. There were a few numbers that exhibited periodic flashes of wit and tunefulness, for instance one involving a medical student accusing his professor of plagiarism, and another involving an autopsy. But, as the show stands, its main assets lie in some reasonably funny set pieces and in the potential for special effects, some of which were already quite impressive, in particular a zombified mad scientist carrying his own severed head. One final note of irritation, there were clear and obvious shills in the audience emitting painfully obvious forced laughter. (Note to once and future writers: Please don't do this. If your show works, the audience will provide the approbation. If it doesn't, you're only embarrassing yourself when the one person laughing is your Aunt Marie.)

Foreverman, with book, music and lyrics by Brett M. Bolles, was among the more sweepingly ambitious NYMF shows this year: a gothic romance with a heavy dose of science fiction, involving two doctors who discover an elixir that grants immortality and the cautionary tale that results. The story has merit, and the show holds a decent amount of promise, particularly in terms of the pleasant, melodic score. But the libretto is full of holes, particularly with respect to the time frame. The show bounces back and forth between the 17th and 19th centuries, relying on supertitle projections to keep the audience temporally oriented. Much of the dialog is of the ploddingly expository kind, but perhaps in most need of fixing are the character motivations, which are downright inscrutable at times. It's not always clear who knows what, about whom, and how they found out about it. For instance, the two central central doctors have a falling out at the end of act one, which is supposed to drive the rest of the story. But it's not entirely clear why they're mad at each other. At various times, characters catch on to what's going on with the whole immortality thing, and the explanations often strain credulity. In fact, there are so many unexplained coincidences and unmotivated character choices that the name of the show could be Wait, What!? The lyrics are bland at best, at worst inscrutable, with an overabundance of clichés and tortured metaphors. One of the doctors sings about his lady love, "I would trade it all for a vial of her name...I'd give up everything for a single drop of her." I guess this has something to do with the elixir at the center of the plot, but I'll be damned if I can parse that sentence. If Foreverman has any future, it's going to need a fairly significant rewrite. Perhaps Mr. Bolles should stick to the music, which again is fairly strong, and bring someone else in to help with the words.

A Letter to Harvey Milk was one of the big winners this year of the 2012 NYMF Awards for Excellence, including the award for best book, a shared award for best lyrics, and performance awards for stars Leslie Kritzer and Jeff Keller. For the most part, the show deserved these awards. The show has a book by Jerry James, music by Laura l. Kramer, lyrics by Ellen M. Schwartz, and is based on a short story by Lesléa Newman. The story involves a retired kosher butcher (Keller) who takes up a writing class and the relationship that he develops with his writing teacher (Kritzer). In the course of the show, we discover things about both characters in a way that draws a profound parallel between the gay-rights struggle of the 1970s and the Jewish experience in the Holocaust. This may sound ponderous, but Harvey Milk is extraordinarily moving, if a tad flawed in its current form. The characters are charming and sympathetic, and the show works really well when it's heartfelt. It's during the moments of abundant hoary humor that the show sometimes falters, although in this production the masterful performers usually find ways to make even the clumsiest material work. Keller is simply outstanding as Harry Weinberg, the butcher, particularly at the very end of the show when all the story threads come together and we witness a devastating episode from Harry's past. Leslie Kritzer makes for a wonderfully understated but emotionally rich foil for Harry. The score features some remarkably lovely songs, including "Frannie's Hands," in which Harry describes the charms of his late wife. The score goes a tad awry in some of the comic numbers, particularly "Turning the Tables," a number in a Jewish deli, complete with an overdose of hoary Yiddish jokes. Some of the dramatic moments in the show need better setup, and one crucial reveal at the end of the show was met with unintended laughter from the audience the day I saw the show. But, overall, A Letter to Harvey Milk is one of two shows from this year's NYMF (the other being He's Not Himself) that I'm most eager to see advance to the next stage, wherever that might be.

July 26, 2012

Here's installment number two of my capsule reviews for the 2012 New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF). Click here to read my first set of reviews. Watch for at least one additional installment, probably two.

The program note for Trouble promises "a show about love, finding it and loosing [sic] it." Yeah, not a very promising way to start. The show has a book by Michael Alvarez, music and lyrics by Ella Grace, and is as bland and unfocused as its title. Trouble comes off as a sort of low-rent Rent, but without the compelling drama or credible characterizations. Like Rent, Trouble wants to capture the voice of its generation. Unlike Rent, Trouble doesn't earn its pathos. Instead of life-and-death stakes, we just get hormones and personality flaws run amok. The show features four teenage couples, three straight and one gay. But these people aren't so much characters as characteristics, with manufactured plot turns to keep the them busy between power ballads. The songs are mostly generic, and often feature unclear dramatic intent, although there are a couple decent attempts at character numbers, one involving one of the gay characters who admits to stalking his class crush, and another about how one of the females sublimates her hostility though baking. The plot basically involves the four couples getting together and breaking up, or breaking up and getting together, and ultimately everything gets resolved in a forced, artificial manner. Characters far too easily forgive genuinely reprehensible acts on the part of their supposed loved ones, and make final choices that seem inconsistent with their character development and that are blissfully unconstrained by reality. In short, Trouble needs a lot of work if it's going to have any life after NYMF.

Stuck isn't quite the mess that Trouble is. The book and the songs by Riley Thomas reflect a lot more skill than those of Trouble, but the story for Stuck is forced and preachy. The show features six people stuck on a New York subway between stations. Over the course of the show, we discover essentially one big thing about each of the characters, with a lot of pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo along the way. Like Trouble, Stuck is populated with types rather than people, and before the end of the show, seemingly everyone makes a dark revelation: pregnancies, suicides, rotten childhoods, addiction, etc. These developments come off not so much as character motivation as they do convenient pieces of dramaturgical shorthand. There are certainly a few interesting songs and moments along the way, but the show reflects far too many tired tropes (including "Oh, isn't New York City dirty, smelly, and heartless?" and "Aren't we all a little crazy?") to be truly effective. Also, the pacing of the show is rather jarring. For instance, the drama peaks way too early with interactions and musical passages about the racism inherent in us all, even minorities. Then, immediately after, we have an upbeat comic number called "The Subway Samba" about the irritations and idiosyncrasies of the New York City subway system. The lyrics range from borderline inspired to trite, with such questionable aphorisms as "Strangers or lovers, the only difference is time." (Um...really? So, if I wait long enough, Jeremy Northam will eventually be mine?) Other lyrical groaners include exhortations to "listen not with your ears but with your heart" and inquiries as to "who completes your rhyme?" Then the show ends with pat resolutions and bromides, including the observation that "everyone wants what everyone wants." Um...OK...

He's Not Himself is easily the most promising NYMF show I've seen so far this year. (I still have seven more to go this weekend.) The show has book, music, and lyrics by Marc Silverberg, who also plays one of the five characters in this mostly amiable and madcap noir romp. The plot involves a male meter maid who dreams of the exciting life of a gangster. And whenever he gets hit on the head - which, of course, is frequently - he switches back and forth between his meek and malicious personalities. Yeah, the multiple personalities schtick is rather overused as a plot device, but Silverberg manages to find ways to keep it fresh. The Jekyll and Hyde scenario sets the stage for some rather raucous physical comedy, expertly staged by director Michael Pantone. The farcical set piece involving all five characters in a diamond heist from the local museum was downright masterful. The songs feature just a tad too much slant rhyme and faulty scansion for my taste, and I noticed at least one dangling modifier: "Dressed as a cop, she won't think something's wrong." In this scene, it's not the "she" who's dressed as a cop, but rather the "he" who is singing. But, with a little more development, He's Not Himself could become a comic gem.

Another promising show is Himself and Nora, with book, music, and lyrics by Jonathan Brielle. The piece concerns the relationship between James Joyce (played here by Matt Bogart) and his long-time lover and eventual wife, Nora Barnacle (Jessica Burrows). One of the primary plot devices involves Joyce's refusal to marry Barnacle as a protest against the Catholic church. "Marriage is a plot of the church to keep the spirit down," Joyce says at one point in the show. But the constant specter of Joyce's inner conflict with his religious indoctrination is represented by the character of a Catholic priest, visible only to Joyce. The priest provides contrapuntal commentary on Joyce's every move. But Himself and Nora is essentially a love story. Make that a lust story. Part of what makes this particular production engaging are the robust and bawdy performances from Bogart and Burrows, who bravely commit to the leering innuendo and outright vulgarity in Brielle's book and lyrics. The bawdiness gets a bit much after a while, but thankfully at that point we move on to Joyce's struggles with censorship and his sixteen-year quest to find a publisher for Ulysses. Brielle gives Bogart and Burrows reasonably vivid and compelling characters to embody, and the story flows in an engaging fashion with spirited, authentic-sounding dialog. The music is idiomatic Irish, percussive and vibrant, with a certain modern flair in the orchestrations. I was, however, unfortunately reminded of February House, another recent musical that adopts the superficial aspects of the lives of major literary figures without really giving them anything profound to say, although Himself and Nora is somewhat more successful in this respect. Even so, with a bit more work on some plot holes here and some tonal inconsistencies there, Himself and Nora could eventually make for a satisfying musical work.

July 19, 2012

It will probably come as a surprise to many of my readers that I have never been to the New York Musical Theatre Festival(NYMF) before this year. I mean, I've been almost singularly devoted to musical theater for well over 30 years. I've been teaching musical theater for almost ten years. And I've been blogging about it for over six years. It would seem like a natural fit for me, right?

Well, all I can say is, when I go to New York, it's usually for the purpose of seeing a particular show. I usually decide what I'm going to see before I make my travel plans, and the shows that I see are usually ones that are already on my radar, whether because they're opening on Broadway, or because the shows have people involved who pique my interest. And theater festivals, such as NYMF and the Fringe, are very frequently populated with shows by people who haven't quite made it onto my radar yet.

Plus, there are usually so many shows at these festivals that it's hard to get focused on one or a handful of works worth seeing. So the festivals have always seemed kind of overwhelming to me. And, since I live in Boston, it's kind of hard for me to pop into a show on impulse, as I would be able to do if I lived a little closer to New York.

But this year, I was invited by the good folks at NYMF to speak on a panel about theater criticism, and while I was in New York, I decided to grab a NYMF schedule and just dive right in. This was partly because I've seen everything I want to see on Broadway, and almost everything I could want to see Off Broadway. But I also wanted to cast a net for shows to consider as part of our new-works program at the Boston Conservatory. I was hoping to contribute to in a more meaningful way to this program by lining up some shows in development to consider for a workshop, staged reading, or even a full-blown production.

So, I picked two weekends and set about creating a schedule that would allow me to see as many shows as possible. I just returned from my first weekend, and will be headed back down two weekends hence. Below are capsule reviews of some of the shows that I've seen so far. I'm currently scheduled to see about 16 shows in total. Stay tuned for more batches later this month.

Rio bills itself as a sort of modern-day version of Oliver Twist. The show has book, music and lyrics by Mitch Magonet and Joey Miller, and is an ambitious, if still somewhat inchoate, musical set in Brazil. The show focuses on the street urchin Pipio in his search for his mother amid the hard and violent streets of Rio de Janeiro. The show starts on a bit of a fuzzy note with a maddeningly opaque opening number. In fact, it's not really until 2 to 3 numbers into the show that the story really kicks into gear. Once it does, the narrative is strong and compelling, although the book and lyrics vacillate between harsh truth and stilted cliché. The NYMF production features spirited and dynamic staging, and the show itself is not without talent or promise. The music has a certain buoyant appeal, although the tone of the show is inconsistent: it doesn't really know if it wants to be entertaining or hard-hitting. Perhaps most damning, the show currently features a rushed and pat resolution that ends the show on a falsely positive note that's inconsistent with the setting and tone of the rest of the piece. But there's enough promise here to warrant another draft or two.

You'd never know it from reading the title, but How Deep is the Ocean is a would-be comedy that centers around a man who has been obsessed with chlorine and pool maintenance since childhood. When the beaches on the Jersey Shore have to close due to the pollution levels, our hero attempts to save the day by chlorinating the ocean. Yeah, kind of ridiculous, but intentionally so. The book here is by Pia Cincotti, and the music and lyrics are by Peter Cincotti, and the main problem with the show in its current form is that the score and the book seem to be from two very different shows. The book has a madcap tone, but the score is overly ballad-heavy and comes off far more earnest that the show seems to be aiming for. The situation has comic promise, but the book is only intermittently funny, and the songs rarely are. The show seems to want to be The Great American Trailer Park Musical, but the humor factor is nowhere near high enough to put in in league with that charmingly dotty little show. The essential structure of the story seems sound, although the second act drags on a bit. The show has a sweet disposition, reasonably strong characterizations, and many memorable melodies. But it needs a sure-handed comic director, like a Christopher Ashley or a Scott Schwartz to pump up the humor. (Oh, and the NYMF production features a surprise celebrity guest. I won't spoil the surprise; you can check below in the comments section if you want to know who it is. But, as fun as this moment was, it's unlikely to be sustainable. A guest star of this stature is unlikely to follow the show on its intended journey. This felt like a one-time stunt, and nothing more.)

Quite a few of the shows at NYMF this year seem to be aiming for the quirky-but-endearing mantle, and Flambé Dreams, with book and lyrics by Matthew Hardy and music by Randy Klein, is most assuredly both quirky and endearing. It's the story of a young man who want to become a maitre d' in honor of his father, who died in a freak Bananas Foster incident. For the most part in these NYMF reviews, I'm going to focus more on the works themselves than on the productions, but a lot of what made Flambé Dreams appealing was the extraordinary cast of Broadway pros: Jarrod Spector as the young man, Catherine Cox as his mother, and Jillian Louis, J. Elaine Marcos, and Kevin B. McGlynnas the various people who come in and out of the young man's life as he attempts to become a maitre d' who specializes in flaming desserts, like his father. The show provides strong and memorable characters for these able performers to embody, and gives them a number of genuine laughs and appealing songs. The show loses steam a bit at about 11 o'clock, as it were, but on the whole I'll be interested in watching how this show progresses, and what its creators produce in the future.

Most of the shows at NYMF that I've seen so far have been fairly conventional book shows. The main exception was Show Me Real, a sort of musical theater/dance/film hybrid conceived and choreographed by Clare Cook, and featuring music and lyrics by Amy Burgess, book and lyrics by Gena Oppenheim. The show concerns three female modern dancers as they work together on a dance piece, creating connections between these performers and three Ziegfeld Follies girls in the past. The result was refreshing in its execution, if a tad jejune in its conception. The themes that emerge are about how, despite the different eras that the women exist within, there are strong undercurrents of overlap regarding the struggle, the uncertainty, and the passion for performing. But what made this uninspired concept come to life were the freshness and honesty of the performers, the spirited and visually varied dance segments, and the sense of dramatic balance and closure that Cook brings to the piece. It also made me wonder why we don't see more of this kind of boundary-pushing work. Or, perhaps more to the point, why I don't seek more of it out. I guess that's what's so great about my expanding my focus beyond Broadway and Off-Broadway. Sure, the cream rises to the top. But there's a lot to be enjoyed beneath that commercial surface.